In its puzzling April 4 lead editorial, "Punishing racist speech," The Cavalier Daily Managing Board asserts that the University should investigate and punish an anonymous Commerce School employee for allegedly making a racially offensive statement to a female minority student, Jennifer Goldson. After an argument over a parking spot in the Central Grounds Parking Garage, the employee reportedly said to Goldson that he would "consider that and your people on Martin Luther King Day." Although this statement certainly deserves everyone's moral condemnation, it does not warrant punishment at the hands of the University. Disciplining the accused employee cannot be justified without seriously misapplying constitutional legal precedent and callously trampling the First Amendment rights of University employees to speak their minds freely.
Government agencies such as the University cannot and should not suppress their employees' speech outside the office solely because it is offensive. Although the temptation to stifle offensive speech has always been strong, civilized people refrain from doing so in the interest of open debate. In free societies, citizens must combat all sentiments of ignorance and intolerance with an arsenal of intelligent argumentation and reasoned response, not with coercive government repression.
The Managing Board, however, invokes two separate legal precedents in a bold attempt to justify disciplining the employee in question for speaking his mind. Although reprehensible in and of itself, this assault on free speech is particularly frightening coming from a newspaper. Of all people, journalists in particular should show more appreciation for the Amendment that keeps them in business.
On the strength of Waters v. Churchill, the Managing Board argues that government agencies may discipline employees when their speech causes a "disruption" and thereby impedes the performance of their assigned duties. And indeed, the Circuit Court's opinion in this case acknowledges the need for seeking a balance between employees' free speech rights and the state's right to employ non-disruptive workers. But even a cursory reading of the decision reveals that a single isolated incident of merely offensive speech outside the office is nowhere enough to qualify as "disruptive."
In fact, the Waters decision specifically emphasizes the Court's responsibility "to ensure that citizens are not deprived of fundamental rights by virtue of working for the government." In determining when employee behavior can be labeled as "disruptive," the Court explicitly cites the uttering of speech "at the office," when the employee is acting in his or her capacity "not as a citizen
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